Movie review: ‘Tigers Are Not Afraid’ is a poignant mix of fantasy and reality

Al Alexander More Content Now

Thursday

Sep 12, 2019 at 2:48 PM

A certain politician does a lot of carping about “the assault” on our Southern border, but one legitimately wonders if he possesses an iota of knowledge as to why refugees so persistently flock to the Land of Liberty. Perhaps he should catch a glimpse of Issa López’ hauntingly beautiful “Tigers Are Not Afraid,” the perfect movie for these most imperfect times.

Like the best films conceived by Oscar-winner Guillermo Del Toro (“The Shape of Water”), López deftly mixes realism and fantasy to create a story of horror that shocks as indelibly as it inspires. One is tempted to draw a direct comparison between “Tigers Are Not Afraid” and Del Toro’s masterpiece, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” in that they are both about young girls escaping the trauma of war through a supernatural imagination. Except that López has a long ways to go to match Del Toro in terms of technique and budget. Emotionally, though, she’s already there, tearing at your heart with a tale unafraid to rip the scabs off a wounded society in which evil and cowardice have tramped hope underfoot.

Set against Mexico’s brutal drug wars, a lawless conflict that has claimed well past 150,000 lives and orphaned almost as many children since 2006, “Tigers Are Not Afraid” is just a microcosm of the mass heartbreak. But it speaks long and loud about the fear rampaging through many a village and city south of the border, where drug cartels have taken charge, corrupting police as well as politicians in order to murder, steal and ravage with impunity.

The anguish López creates is palpable, so much so you understand why so many victims opt to flee to the United States. But not everyone has the inclination or the means to get there. Those would be the thousands of lost children forced to fend off the streets, forming makeshift communities with fellow orphans in order to survive under the bogus theory that there is safety in numbers. Paola Lara’s Estrella is among them. We meet the budding 11-year-old writer as she’s diving to the floor of her classroom to duck automatic weapon fire piercing the air just above her shivering torso.

She survives, but the school closes. But that’s merely the start of a days-long nightmare in which she will also lose her mother and her home. Forced to live on the streets, she hooks up with a crew led by a similarly aged tough guy in Shine (Juan Ramon López, outstanding), a pint-sized cynic with a disfigured face and a whole lot of attitude aimed at the drug dealers who burned down his house with his family inside. He and his three buddies, Pop (Rodrigo Cortez), Tucsi (Hanssel Casillas) and Morro (Nery Arredondo), a toddler always clutching his equally adorable stuffed tiger, have taken up residence in an improvised camp equipped with a big-screen TV and enough stolen goods to keep their bellies full.

With scenes straight out of Dickens, we watch the urchins quarrel and bond, never losing sight of their goal of exacting revenge against Chino (Tenoch Huerta), the man responsible for their shared misery. You admire their resourcefulness as profoundly as you cringe at the brutality that surrounds them in what has become - literally and figuratively - a ghost city in which the dead are undoubtedly restless, rotting from beneath blood-stained cellophane wrap. To us, they are ghouls, but to the children, they are Mom, Dad, Sister and Brother, the people they still love and vow to avenge.

As you may have gathered, López doesn’t shy away from the darkness, but she’s just as liberal with the elements of surreal fantasy in this “kingdom of broken things,” where stuffed animals walk and talk and the living chat regularly with the dead. It’s an escape for both the progenies and us, as we dare peek from beneath hand-covered eyes in the wake of kids being shot, murdered and (in a much too familiar scene culled from real life) locked in cages like animals.

Few will get out alive, and López makes the convincing argument that for many of these used-and-abused children death is almost a welcome alternative to the suffering and torment of growing up in an environment where terror is far more prevalent than love. Yet, love is what “Tigers Are Not Afraid” is all about. For the kids, it’s an indestructible emotion that is their only salvation. And when it’s finally over for them, and a quiet peace achieved, it’s all you can do not to weep in sorrow as well as joy over what these children have discovered in achieving a sweet relief. And just maybe the next time you see little ones like Estrella, Shine, Pop, Tucsi and Morro locked in cages in our land of opportunity, maybe you’ll think a bit differently knowing why the U.S. has become the seemingly happy ending so many of them desperately crave; and the reality that their idea of bliss will yield nothing beyond more bitterness and rejection. God bless those children.